


Voltaire and Nighthawks

by Chairman



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Kay's Phantom, while in France Charles is dragged into the nightclub Cafe Voltaire and becomes embroiled in a locked room murder mystery, a la Mystery of the Yellow Chamber.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voltaire and Nighthawks

**Author's Note:**

> A Preface: I despise Love Never Dies. And I think a huge glaring error in the entire story is how they handle Erik and Christine's child Gustav and how much of a scumbag they made Raoul. Because it didn't have to happen that way.
> 
> Because Susan Kay did it better.
> 
> So this is being written directly at the end of Phantom, with Charles and Raoul still at the Opera Garnier, and it is primarily about an adopted father and son.
> 
> It is also my excuse to write a murder mystery centered around popular music in the late-Romantic period, taking place in cabarets and with the emergence of avant-garde music.
> 
> As many (read: most) of the main characters in the original stories are dead, save Raoul and the Persian (who I spared so he could make an appearance), there will be many, many OCs. And since this story is set in a world of artists and dancers, many of them would be female. There will, however, be no love interest.
> 
> I apologize for the length of this note, and if I haven't turned you away, thanks for reading!

The Opera Garnier has changed much in the course of eighteen years. What once were screams have been silenced into whispers, and legends are forgotten by all but the most immediate players.

If you walk up to Box Five, you would find nothing strange; just a tired looking middle-aged man and a handsome boy rapt in the opera playing many floors down. You will not see the lines on the man’s face fade away to the fresh-faced youth of twenty years sitting enamored with the diva on stage. You will not see him in the cellars of the opera house, placing his life and trust onto a near-stranger as they descended deeper and deeper into the forests of the Congo. Time has not erased the memories of the past, but merely laid a thick layer of dust upon a story history has relegated to the mad ravings of lawyers and tales told by mothers who once were dancers.

And the boy…if you look back to the events of 1881, you would not see the boy. He is untouched by the ghosts the gold statues of Apollo stood witness to. Yet he is no ordinary boy.

Only at intermission does the boy lower his opera glasses, which have left comical circular indents under his eyes, to turn and look at his father. “Are you enjoying Carmen?” he asks, his light brown, almost amber eyes searching his father’s face for any sign of discontent.

“It’s very good, my boy,” the aging Vicomte de Chagny answers.

“Isn’t it nice to attend an opera where it’s sung in the original language?” The boy smiles at the recollection of his then-living mother gently dragging his gently protesting father to the likes of Mozart and Verdi, only to bristle in indignation at the butchered French the translators slapped together in attempts to be original.

“There was no such rubbish in my day,” she had said indignantly. Every time she bristled at the state of opera these days, Charles wanted to ask her why she never returned to the stage. She sometimes sang to him, often as a child, and her voice was still lovely even after her troubled pregnancy. He never asked.

Someone softly knocks at the door, and Charles jumps up to open it. A girl seemingly a few years older than him stood outside expectantly, clicking her heeled shoes on the floor. “Monsieur de Chagny?” she asks. “I guess I should add ‘le Vicomte’ de Chagny to be more specific.”

Raoul raises his hand and slowly stands up, eyeing the girl with not so much suspicion as surprise. “Yes, this is he,” he says. “Who is asking?”

The girl searches in the folds of her dress and produces a letter, which she smoothes with her hands. “My mother,” she hands the letter to Raoul. “Perhaps you remember her?”

With careful hands Raoul opens the letter and glances at the name. “Anne Sorelli? Of course I remember her.” He continues to read the letter, his hands trembling slightly. Charles stands beside him, uncomfortably evading the girl’s persistent stare. “And you must be Pauline. I remember when you were a mere babe carried in your mother’s arms.”

“Glad you remember me,” says the girl, her mouth curling in a knot that resembles neither a smile nor a frown. “Mama would like to meet you after the performance, backstage. She wants to thank you. And probably talk to you.”

“I haven’t thought about you two for many years,” Raoul says, folding the letter and tucking it in his waistcoat pocket. “I hope the income I set out for you was enough.” He coughs and notices Charles standing awkwardly. Gesturing towards him, he says, “Pauline, this is my son Charles. Charles, this is your… cousin, Pauline.”

Pauline nods and quickly jumps towards the door as the entr’acte signals the end of the intermission. “I’ll see you after the show,” she says.

“I have a cousin?” Charles says blankly. “I don’t recall hearing from any relatives. Ever, actually.”

“That’s because in all technicalities Pauline isn’t your cousin. Not legally, anyways. Her father—my brother, Philippe—died before she was even born. No one else in the family would recognize her birth, so I set out a modest fund for her and her mother.”

“Anne Sorelli?”

“The lead ballerina for many years. My brother had many, let’s say liaisons with her.”

“Did he love her?” Charles pronounces the word with childish disdain.

Raoul shrugs. “I don’t know; he died before I could ask him. Perhaps he did. I merely did what human decency required.”

“You never mentioned it.” Charles settles back into his seat, fiddling with the opera glasses before the curtain rises. His mind is already drifting away from the present into the world of music, but he makes a conscious effort this time to stay long enough to listen to his father reply.

“I did not wish to remind your mother of her past if possible.”

“You kept secrets,” Charles says accusingly. His face twists into a grotesque frown, before it reverts to a blank stare like a wax statue. He is not a child to stay mad, and soon he is smiling faintly at the opera again. 

At the end of the opera they descend the grand staircase, pushing against a crowd of well-dressed individuals—not as many, Raoul notes, as there once were—to the dressing room. The Vicomte de Chagny self-consciously adjusts his waistcoat multiple times as he heads backstage to the familiar rooms. Yet he is no longer the starstruck young lover, and this visit makes him feel older step by step. How strange to think that he is now older than Philippe! But the sounds of ballet shoes on wooden floors and the smell of powder and turpentine bring back memories, of innocence and red roses. But most of all, it brings back memories of two people, one whom he cannot bear to forget, the other whom he cannot forget despite his most fervent wishes.

“It’s funny,” he mutters under his breath. “That I’m the last one still standing here in the building both of you loved so much more than I.”

“Did you say something, Dad?” Charles says.

Raoul shakes his head and adjust his cufflinks. “Nothing to trouble yourself with, my boy.” He watches the boy’s conscious stare, the concern contorting his face. What a strange, almost affected child, so strangely wise even though he knows nothing. Does Erik know of him, Raoul often wonders, does the old ghost whisper into his ears about angels and music when the boy sleeps? 

The Vicomte de Chagny walks backstage in a blur, feeling as if he is himself a ghost, visiting the dilapidated future in which he no longer plays a part. They come across a small office where a plump, middle-aged woman sits, her limbs betraying a hint of grace still lingering after many years. She rises when Raoul enters, and shakes his hand cordially even though she never truly knew him in years when they were both young and in love with individuals now dead. La Sorelli is no longer the lithe beauty the Comte de Chagny visited, but she still has a well-formed smile time has not yet stolen from her.

Pauline Sorelli sits beside her mother and promptly stands up, and nods to her mother. “May I leave now, Mama?”

“Yes you may, Linette. And, Monsieur de Chagny, would you like your son to remain or…” La Sorelli leaves the suggestion in the air, the simplicity of the suggestion hinting that she’d prefer it if Charles leaves.

“Well,” Raoul coughs, “Charles, would you like to remain while we adults discussed or be, well, I guess you could see Paris at night though I fear you’ll be lost.”

“I can give him a guided tour if you want,” Pauline says. 

La Sorelli smiles. “Trust my daughter, Monsieur de Chagny. La Hirondelle, we call her—she is well liked by many, especially where she will take him. These talks are not meant for the young.”

Charles, meanwhile, has turned paler and paler at the prospect of spending an evening both away from his father and in the company of a young woman. But he sees the intent stare of his father, and he senses that the adults will soon talk about the Past—the same story, told in whispers when he has faked sleep. The kind of Past a child like him ought not know. So he acquiesces and follows Pauline out of the room.

Once away from the presence of her elders, Pauline’s body relaxes and she steps with an airy nonchalance such that Charles now can see why they call her a swallow. “Oh thank god we’re out of there,” she laughs. “I just can’t believe I met my uncle. Do I look like him?”

“Who?”

“Oh, your father! We are relatives, after all. I don’t know though,” she stares intently at Charles’ face, and he turns away bashfully. “I look nothing like you, though you don’t look much like your father, do you?”

“I never thought about it, would you mind not staring at me please?”

“Why?” Pauline playfully jabs at Charles’ arm. “Does it bother you?”

“Actually, yes.”

She laughs. “What a sport you’ll be, eh? I hereby apologize on behalf of all the young French ladies who will swoon at your face and proper British mannerisms. Though I do hope you’ll lighten up where we’re going.”

“And where exactly are we going?”

“To the place of the young,” Pauline says, a strange smile on her face. “The Café Voltaire.”


End file.
